In CyberPhilosophy: The Intersection of Philosophy and Computing, edited by James H. Moor and Terrell Ward Bynum (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2002), 66-77. Also in Metaphilosophy 33.1/2 (2002): 70-82.

Philosophical interest in the structure of perception is motivated by questions such as these: How does perception function to constrain and justify our empirical theories? How is it possible to perceive an extended process, when at any given moment of our perceiving it only one of its temporal phases is impinging on our senses? What determines the object or objects of perception - those things our experiences are about? The need to answer these and other questions about perception in a (...) satisfactory manner provides adequacy conditions for a theory of perception. (shrink)

This essay is a critical examination of how Edmund Husserl, in his appropriation of Franz Brentano’s concept of intentionality into his phenomenology, deals with the very issues that shaped Brentano’s theory of intentionality. These issues concern the proper criterion for distinguishing mental from physical phenomena and the right explanation for the independence of the intentionality of mental phenomena from the existence or non-existence of their objects. Husserl disagrees with Brentano’s views that intentionality is the distinguishing feature of all mental phenomena (...) and that the mental status of intentional objects is what explains the said independence. The crucial concept in Husserl’s theory of intentionality is the noema of consciousness, which functions in the same way as Gottlob Frege’s sense in his theory of semantics. This essay argues that Husserl’s alternative solutions to the problems of Brentano run in conflict either with the desired rigor of his phenomenology or with the actual workings of language. (shrink)

I examine the way in which Daniel Dennett (1987, 1995) uses his 'intentional' and 'design' stances to make the claim that intentionality is derived from design. I suggest that Dennett is best understood as attempting to supply an objective, nonintentional, naturalistic rationale for our use of intentional concepts. However, I demonstrate that his overall picture presupposes prior application of the intentional stance in a preconditional, ineliminable,'sense-giving' role. Construed as such, Dennett's account is almost identical to the account of biological teleology (...) offered by Kant in The Critique of Judgement, with the consequence that Dennett's naturalism is untenable. My conclusions lead to doubts concerning the legitimacy of any account attempting to naturalise intentionality by extracting normativity from biology and also point to a novel account of biological function. (shrink)

This article tries to create a bridge of understanding between cognitive scientists and phenomenologists who work on attention. In light of a phenomenology of attention and current psychological and neuropsychological literature on attention, I translate and interpret into phenomenological terms 20 key cognitive science concepts as examined in the laboratory and used in leading journals. As a preface to the lexicon, I outline a phenomenology of attention, especially as a dynamic three-part structure, which I have freely amended from the work (...) of phenomenologist and Gestalt philosopher Aron Gurwitsch (1901–1973). As a conclusion, I discuss the nature of subjectivity in attention and attention research, and whether attention might be the same as consciousness. (shrink)

Recent studies in developmental psychology have found evidence to suggest that there exists an innate system that accounts for the possibilities of early infant imitation and the existence of phantom limbs in cases of congenital absence of limbs. These results challenge traditional assumptions about the status and development of the body schema and body image, and about the nature of the translation process between perceptual experience and motor ability.

Various reflections on the nature of consciousness, partly inspired by Alastair Hannay's views on the subject, are presented. In particular, its reality as a distinct non-physical existence is defended against such alternatives as have dominated philosophy for many years. The main difficulty in such a defense concerns the contingency it seems to imply as to the relations between consciousness and its expression in behaviour. But it only implies such contingency if some version of the Humean principle that there cannot be (...) necessary connections between distinct existences is assumed. It is more promising to see this relation as the falsification of this Humean principle and thus avoid what seems the main recommendation of behaviourism, functionalism etc. Some final reflections on the nature of the physical suggest that something like consciousness may be the noumenal essence of the physical in general. (shrink)

In my paper, I develop a phenomenological and pragmatist reflection on the fragility of liberal democracy’s moral foundations in times of war. Following Judith Shklar’s conception of the “liberalism of fear”, the legitimacy of the liberal-democratic order is seen as grounded in experiences of suffering caused by political violence. It is also assumed that the liberalism of fear delivers an adequate conception of the normative foundations of the European project. With the help of phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (...) and Michel Henry, the paper ants to philosophically deepen the liberalism of fear by outlining a theory of “pathic evidence” as a normative foundation and the concept of a common “flesh of the political” as a shared moral sensitivity that sets boundaries to political conflict as well as the political imaginary, excluding what I call the production of “monumental meaning”. It then examines the question which political conditions are needed for this evidence to become a shared, communal criteria of ethical thought, and considers inner and outer challenges to the transmission and reproduction of this evidence in time, drawing especially on John Dewey’s ideas of democratic communication and social intelligence. In the current war, the following problem appears as crucial for the “soul” of European democracies which are confronted with the need to respond to Russia’s attack: How can a political morality grounded in pathic evidence be sustained, once it is challenged by an aggressor who, out of cultural and political reasons, shows a higher level of toleration towards violence? Besides aggression from an external foe, there are also temporal dynamics that further the loss of the inhibiting force of pathic evidence from the inside. As it shall be argued, boredom can be such a factor. The paper concludes by drawing conclusions for the current war in Ukraine. (shrink)

With this article, I seek to examine Krause’s analysis of the self in Analitische Philosophie, and in particular in Vorlesungen über die Psychische Anthropologie. But I do so through the texts that the Spanish Krausists devoted either to translating or to discussing and disseminating Krause’s ideas in dialogue with the philosophies of the time. In my exposition and examination of the doctrine of the self, I focus on its embedding in a particular existence through embodiment, and argue that these are (...) aspects with which Krausism can still illuminate the debate about human subjectivity. (shrink)

Monstrosity has its recognized place in cultural narratives but in philosophical discourse it remains mostly untouched. In my paper I make an attempt at phenomenological inquiry into the experience of the Other’s monstrous body. I am beginning with some remarks concerning Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault, the philosophers who devoted some attention to the problem of monstrosity and the monstrous, but my analysis is mainly based on the works of Bernhard Waldenfels, Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Waldenfels emphasizes that the (...) corporeal self is somehow perceived as alien, always somewhat distanced and not totally graspable. He also argues that the closer the Other, the stronger activation of the boundary between the spheres of the ownness and the alienness is caused. A promising framework for the analysis of the ambivalent reaction brought about by the encounter with a monstrous human body can be provided by Husserl’s phenomenological inquiry into the process of pairing, developed in his Cartesian meditations. It seems that in this experience the pairing process is frustrating and deranged because the process of apperception is disturbed by a cluster of untypical or quite unique characteristics of the monstrous body. In result, its sense remains unclear, puzzling and challenging. Interesting light on the experience of the Other’s monstrous body could shed Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, especially the ideas of flesh and chiasm outlined in his last work. The radical character of the monster, while does not render it something totally different from the own, elucidates, however, the contingency of the order under which the human corporeality is subsumed. (shrink)

In a context of pervasive digitalization of the social world, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the field of education has undergone major changes with the development of digital practices and settings. However, the physical presence of the subjects and the body remain something primordial and irreplaceable in traditional educational processes. Thus, it is often assumed that virtuality is opposed to the corporeal reality of the subjects involved in teaching, learning and studying. In this paper we aim to critically (...) challenge this assumption by addressing the phenomenon of virtuality in a more original sense: as a fundamental dimension of corporeality itself. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological insights, we argue that the experience of the virtual is inherently embodied and fully real. We understand corporeality and virtuality as entangled and multidimensional phenomena. At the same time, this leads us to rethink the digital as only one possible medium in which virtuality can appear as inherent to embodied experience. We develop our phenomenological approach in three instances. First, we question and bracket two common assumptions about corporeality. From our critical perspective, assumptions about a disembodied digitality and a devirtualized corporeality represent extremes within which educational discourses currently move. Second, we address the inherent virtuality of embodied experience. We outline the heuristic concept of the virtual body to describe corporeality and virtuality as entangled and multidimensional phenomena that encompass extension, intercorporeality and intermediality. Finally, we make some remarks on the relationships of corporeality and virtuality considering the challenges of digital education. (shrink)

In contrast to Anglophone debates on personal identity initially formed by John Locke’s investigation of personal identity in the sense of personal continuity or persistence through time, the Continental tradition focuses on what constitutes ipseity in the sense of individuality or uniqueness of the human being “constituted” by its continuous transformation through changing experience. In this study, I claim that contemporary phenomenological research in France—especially the “phenomenology of the event” as represented by Henri Maldiney and Claude Romano—contributes to this Continental (...) discussion in a significant way: it formulates the conditions of personal uniqueness or distinctiveness with regard to other persons, conditions not to be found in Heidegger’s existential conception of selfhood in Being and Time. More precisely, Maldiney and Romano allow us to answer the principal questions of this study: In what does the personal uniqueness consist? What exactly individualizes the first-person selfhood disclosed in Dasein’s relation to death? In my three-stage analysis, I first deal with Heidegger’s conception of selfhood in Being and Time and its limits with respect to the question of personal uniqueness. Next, I analyse Maldiney’s conception of “eventful selfhood” in which he “completes” Heidegger’s conception of selfhood by describing Dasein’s openness to ontical, and yet fully authentic events. Finally, I develop the argumentation by presenting Romano’s even more radical conception of the “happening subjectivity”, which allows us to return to the second major feature of personal identity: personal persistence. Nonetheless, I conclude that the connection between personal uniqueness and persistence is not sufficiently examined in the phenomenology of the event, which opens the path towards another related inquiry into the following problem: What is the proper subjective dimension or the “underlying thing” in the background of personal persistence which somehow resists events? (shrink)

Phenomenologically grounded research on pregnancy is a thriving area of activity in feminist studies and related disciplines. But what has been largely omitted in this area of research is the experience of childbirth itself. This paper proposes a phenomenological analysis of childbirth inspired by the work of Merleau-Ponty. The paper proceeds from the conviction that the concept of anonymity can play a critical role in explicating the affective structure of childbirth. This is evident in at least two respects. First, the (...) concept of anonymity gives structural specificity to the different levels of bodily existence at work in childbirth. Second, the concept of anonymity can play a powerful explanatory role in accounting for the sense of strangeness accompanying childbirth. To flesh these ideas out, I focus on two attributes of birth, sourced from first-person narratives of childbirth. The first aspect concerns the sense of leaving one’s body behind during childbirth while the second aspect concerns the sense of strangeness accompanying the first encounter with the baby upon successful delivery. I take both of these aspects of childbirth seriously, treating them as being instructive not only of the uniqueness of childbirth but also revealing something important about bodily life more generally. Accordingly, the paper unfolds in three stages. First, I will critically explore the concept of anonymity in Merleau-Ponty; second, I will apply this concept to childbirth; finally, I will provide an outline of how childbirth sheds light on the broader nature of bodily life. (shrink)

Context: Varela’s neurophenomenology was conceived from the outset as a criticism and dissolution of the “hard problem” of the physical origin of consciousness. Indeed, the standard (….

Four couple therapy first consultations involving clients with diagnosed narcissistic problems were examined. A sociologically enriched and broadened concept of narcissistic disorder was worked out based on Goffman’s micro-sociology of the self. Conversation analytic methods were used to study in detail episodes in which clients resist to answer a therapist’s question, block or dominate the development of the conversation’s topic, or conspicuously display their interactional independence. These activities are interpreted as a pattern of controlling practices that were prompted by threats (...) that the first couple therapy consultation imposes upon the clients’ self-image. The results were discussed in the light of contemporary psychiatric discussions of narcissism; the authors suggest that beyond its conceptualization as a personality disorder, narcissism should be understood as a pattern of interactional practices. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to re-think the question of the world of persons with schizophrenia from the perspective of the German phenomenologist Max Scheler and that of the Japanese psychiatrist Bin Kimura. So far, no comparison between these two authors has been made, even though there are several convergences and evidence of Scheler’s indirect influence on Bin Kimura through Viktor von Weizsäcker. In recent years, Dan Zahavi, Louis Sass, and Josef Parnas have interpreted the modus vivendi of schizophrenic patients (...) in relation to a disturbance on the level of the “minimal self”. Subsequently, the discussion has highlighted the importance of disorders on the level of intercorporeality and intersubjectivity (Thomas Fuchs) and on the level of “existential feelings” (Matthew Ratcliffe). This paper argues that Max Scheler and Bin Kimura allow us to focus on an aspect which has been neglected so far: that of a “relational self” that relates to the very foundation of intersubjectivity and intercorporeality and that can thus be reborn in the encounter with the other and may position itself differently in the world. In Scheler’s perspective, the world of persons with schizophrenia is the result of an axiological disorder (valueception) that impairs contact with the primordial life impulse (Lebensdrang). As a consequence, they are incapable of attuning emotionally and socially with others: this prevents the singularity from being reborn in the encounter with the other and forces them to position themselves in their own solipsistic universe. Moving in a similar direction, Bin Kimura interprets the world of persons with schizophrenia as the result of a disorder of aida (one of the central concepts of Japanese culture that indicates the space of being in between). The disorder of aida compromises the basic relationship (Grundverhältnis in the sense of Viktor von Weizsäcker) and hinders what Bin Kimura calls festum, i.e. the birth of subjectivity, so that it is experienced by persons with schizophrenia only as ante festum. Starting from these two perspectives, I argue the existence of an axiological and anthropogenetic dimension of psychopathology. I begin with a discussion of Zahavi’s concept of minimal self and the thesis that reveals the disorders on this level of subjectivity as the origin of the world of persons with schizophrenia. I, then, analyze Max Scheler’s position and its historic importance for the emergence of phenomenological psychopathology. Thereafter, I introduce the concepts of “disorder of aida” (Bin Kimura) and “disorder of ordo amoris” (Max Scheler). Finally, I develop the concept of a “psychopathology of ordo amoris” by also comparing it with Ratcliffe’s thesis of “existential feelings”. (shrink)

The aim of this dissertation is to offer a new theory of humor that takes seriously both the universality and power of humor in culture. In the first chapter, I summarize historical and contemporary theories, and show how each either 1) fails to give any definition of humor, 2) fails as a theory of humor, and/or 3) underappreciates, dismisses, or does not consider the power of humor in experience. The second chapter explains the failures of prior theories by understanding the (...) problem in terms of Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms. These forms of culture are perspectives through which we express and understand our world, and each presents its own unique perspectives through which we can understand ourselves and the world. In the third chapter, I argue that humor is one of these necessary and universal symbolic forms of culture. I argue that confusions in the philosophy of humor stem from approaches to humor that understand it as part of some other symbolic form rather than as a form itself. In the fourth chapter, I argue for the function of humor as that which reveals and exposes epistemic vices –laziness, arrogance, and closed-minded thinking about ourselves and the world. I support this argument by showing not only that all previous theories of humor have within them epistemic revelation as a consistent commonality, but also by showing that this revelation is necessary to the form of humor while it is, at best, accidental to other forms. In my final chapter, I suggest that we ought to approach humor objectively, and that the normativity of the symbolic forms guides us toward such an approach. I offer two objective questions to ask about a given instance of humor: 1) does the humor idealize a liberated end? and 2) does the humor fulfil the cultural function of the symbolic form it represents by disrupting epistemically vicious thinking? If the answer to both of these questions is affirmative, then it is likely that the humor in question is morally praiseworthy. I conclude by offering suggestions for further study. (shrink)

In current debates, many philosophers of science have sympathies for the project of introducing a new approach to the scientific realism debate that forges a middle way between traditional forms of scientific realism and anti-realism. One promising approach is perspectivism. Although different proponents of perspectivism differ in their respective characterizations of perspectivism, the common idea is that scientific knowledge is necessarily partial and incomplete. Perspectivism is a new position in current debates but it does have its forerunners. Figures that are (...) typically mentioned in this context include Dewey, Feyerabend, Leibniz, Kant, Kuhn, and Putnam. Interestingly, to my knowledge, there exists no work that discusses similarities to the phenomenological tradition. This is surprising because here one can find systematically similar ideas and even a very similar terminology. It is startling because early modern physics was noticeably influenced by phenomenological ideas. And it is unfortunate because the analysis of perspectival approaches in the phenomenological tradition can help us to achieve a more nuanced understanding of different forms of perspectivism. The main objective of this paper is to show that in the phenomenological tradition one finds a well-elaborated philosophy of science that shares important similarities with current versions of perspectivism. Engaging with the phenomenological tradition is also of systematic value since it helps us to gain a better understanding of the distinctive claims of perspectivism and to distinguish various grades of perspectivism. (shrink)

Статтю присвячено аналізу становлення феноменологічної соціології як синтезу класичної феноменології та елементів методології символічного інтеракціонізму – на прикладі розгляду проблеми пошуку адекватного методологічного підходу до дослідження соціальної ідентичності. Зроблено припущення, що соціальна ідентичність, відповідно до логіки феноменологічної соціології Альфреда Шюца, закріплюється при переході від одних «Ми-зв’язків» до інших «Ми-зв’язків» зі збереженням наступності життєсвіту. Цю ситуацію Пітер Бергер і Томас Лукман назвуть переходом до інституалізації у процесі кристалізації соціальних зв’язків, як основним шляхом вторинної соціалізації. Логіка становлення методології феноменологічної соціології у дослідженні (...) соціальної ідентичності підводить до необхідності аналізу цієї ідентичності засобами інституційного аналізу. (shrink)

Contemporary accounts on fictional emotions, i.e., emotions experienced towards objects we know to be fictional, are mainly concerned with explaining their rationality or lack thereof. In this context dominated by an interest in the role of belief, questions regarding their phenomenal quality have received far less attention: it is often assumed that they feel “similar” to emotions that target real objects. Against this background, this paper focuses on the possible specificities of fictional emotions’ qualitative feel. It starts by presenting what (...) I call the “phenomenological question” about the qualitative feel of fictional emotions (section 1) and by showing that this is irreducible to questions about their cognitive, intentional, evaluative, and embodied nature (section 2). Drawing on some insights from early phenomenologists, the next two sections elaborate criteria to distinguish between real and sham emotions on the one side (section 3) and between genuine and non-genuine emotions on the other (section 4). Finally, I apply this orthogonal distinction to the particular case of fictional emotions (section 5). The paper argues that fictional emotions are neither sham emotions nor quasi-emotions, but full-fledged emotional experiences, despite them displaying the distinctive phenomenology of emotions experienced as non-genuine. In the particular case of fictional emotions, they are non-genuine because our psychology is in fact in a state dominated by aesthetic enjoyment. (shrink)

Despite the criticisms that Levinas addresses to Nietzsche throughout his writing, he also praises Nietzsche’s legacy. In Humanism of the Other, he indicates how the Nietzschean man is “‘reducing’ being, […] undoing by the non-saying of dance and laughter […] the worlds that weave the aphoristic verb that demolishes them; retiring from the time of aging […] by the thought of the eternal recurrence”. Interpreting Nietzsche’s ambiguous thought of the eternal recurrence as a source of youth, Levinas brings to light (...) the fertility of Nietzsche’s concept of temporality. The aim of this paper is first to render Nietzsche’s thought on time more explicit, focusing on his approach to eternal recurrence, and then to study Levinas’ own approach to time. In the end, it will be possible to understand better Levinas’ interpretation of Nietzsche, and to shed light on some important similarities between these two different approaches to time. (shrink)

Massively multiplayer online games are not merely electronic communication systems based on computational databases, but also include artificial intelligence that possesses complex, dynamic structure. Each visible action taken by a component of the multi-agent system appears simple, but is supported by vastly more sophisticated invisible processes. A rough outline of the typical hierarchy has four levels: interaction between two individuals, each either human or artificial, conflict between teams of agents who cooperate with fellow team members, enduring social-cultural groups that seek (...) to accomplish shared goals, and large-scale cultural traditions, often separated into virtual geographic regions. In many MMOs, both magic and religion are represented, in ways that harmonize with a social-scientific theory that defines them in terms of specific versus general psychological compensators. This article draws empirical examples from five diverse MMOs: Dark Age of Camelot, Dungeons and Dragons Online, World of Warcraft, A Tale in the Desert and Gods and Heroes. (shrink)

Empathy is a term used to denote our experience of connecting or feeling with an Other. The term has been used both by psychologists and phenomenologists as a supplement for our biological capacity to understand an Other. In this paper I would like to challenge the possibility of such empathy. If empathy is employed to mean that we know another person’s feelings, then I argue that this is impossible. I argue that there is an equivocation in the use of the (...) term ‘empathy’ which conditions the appropriation of the Other as we think that we know how the Other feels. To claim that we do know an Other’s feelings – or any kind of their intentional experience – means to appropriate their experience through our own. I will first reveal the equivocal use of the term ‘empathy’ and, then, I will explore Husserl’s use of the term. In Husserl, the understanding of an Other as empathy is only partial. I shall conclude by reiterating a thesis from philosophy of existence and feminist theory according to which to know another person comes from creating a community with them and not because we have a biological structure that can mirror each other’s feelings. (shrink)

The article aims at clarifying the viewpoint of a critical realist relational sociology when dealing with the notion of ‘relational subject’. The term ‘relational subject’, as developed by Donati and Archer, The Relational Subject, indicates individual and social subjects as ‘relationally constituted’, i.e. in as much as they acquire qualities and powers through their internal and external social relations. The validity of the relational perspective can be seen on different levels in social ‘collective’ subjects: on the micro level, on the (...) meso level and on the macro level. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHusserl's phenomenology of intersubjectivity is often thought to fall into solipsism and thus be a failed project. One of the typical symptoms is the so-called “paradox of incorporation”. The key to avoiding the paradox lies in finding the motives that lead to alien experiences. An important effort in this direction is to extend the so-called phenomenon of “double sensation” limited to the tactile realm to all perceptual realms. However, the legitimacy of the extension is based on the recognition of a (...) pre-subjective, anonymous, and impersonal dimension, which exorcizes, but not answer the question. This article attempts to make a new interpretation of Husserl's fifth Cartesian Meditation. It focuses on the concept of “replacing” and argues that the motivational basis of alien experience is the desire for total naturalization. (shrink)

In The Human Place in the Cosmos Max Scheler argues the question of philosophical anthropology must address three problems: the difference between man and animal; the Cartesian problem of the mind and body; and the essence of spirit. In a recent issue of Human Studies, two articles by Cristian Ciocan and Christian Ferencz-Flatz addressed the first of these problems through investigations of Husserl’s Nachlass. In this paper, I respond primarily to Ciocan by drawing on Scheler’s phenomenology and the implications this (...) has for understanding Husserl’s phenomenology. By looking at Husserl’s published comments, we can see how the attempt to differentiate between man and animal is bound up with his understanding of spirituality. This allows an alternative way of understanding normality and abnormality which shifts emphasises away from how far we can empathise with the Other to emphasise what it means to be normal or abnormal. This will allow us to address an ambiguity of Husserl identified by Ferencz-Flatz. (shrink)

This monograph offers a fresh perspective on the applicability of mathematics in science. It explores what mathematics must be so that its applications to the empirical world do not constitute a mystery. In the process, readers are presented with a new version of mathematical structuralism. The author details a philosophy of mathematics in which the problem of its applicability, particularly in physics, in all its forms can be explained and justified. Chapters cover: mathematics as a formal science, mathematical ontology: what (...) does it mean to exist, mathematical structures: what are they and how do we know them, how different layers of mathematical structuring relate to each other and to perceptual structures, and how to use mathematics to find out how the world is. The book simultaneously develops along two lines, both inspired and enlightened by Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy. One line leads to the establishment of a particular version of mathematical structuralism, free of “naturalist” and empiricist bias. The other leads to a logical-epistemological explanation and justification of the applicability of mathematics carried out within a unique structuralist perspective. This second line points to the “unreasonable” effectiveness of mathematics in physics as a means of representation, a tool, and a source of not always logically justified but useful and effective heuristic strategies. (shrink)

This paper explores the meaning of dreamless sleep. First, I consider four reasons why we commonly pass over sleep's ontological significance. Second, I compare and contrast death and sleep to show how each is oriented to questions regarding the possibilities of "being-a-whole." In the third and final part, I explore the meaning and implications of "being-toward-sleep," arguing that human existence emerges atop naturally anonymous corporeality (i.e. living being). In sum, I try to show that we can recover an authentic — (...) if somewhat ambiguous — sense of "being-a-whole" only by recognizing the ontological significance of dreamless sleep. (shrink)

This paper offers an intellectual portrait of the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, by considering his incorporation of perspectives associated with “modernism,” the artistic and intellectual avant-garde of the first half of the twentieth century. These perspectives are largely absent in other alternatives in psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. Emphasis is placed on Lacan’s affinities with phenomenology, a tradition he criticized and to which he is often seen as opposed. Two general issues are discussed. The first is Lacan’s unparalleled appreciation of the (...) paradoxical nature of human experience, together with his treatment of paradox as almost a criterion of truth. These points are illustrated by considering Lacan’s conceptions of the self and of erotic desire. The second issue is Lacan’s focus on the “ontological dimension,” on overall styles or modalities of what might be termed “transcendental subjectivity”: namely, what he calls the registers of the “Imaginary,” the “Symbolic,” and the “Real.” By emphasizing the incommensurable yet interdependent nature of these modalities, Lacan offers a synthesis of dynamic/conflictual and formal/ontological dimensions of the human condition. This paper offers an encompassing portrait of Lacan’s major ideas that is at odds with the widespread assumption that Lacan is somehow a deeply anti-humanist thinker who derides the subjective dimension. Lacan’s most distinctive contributions are fundamentally concerned with the nature of human experience. They show strong affinities with hermeneutic forms of phenomenology inspired by Heidegger, a philosopher who focused on ontological modes of Being and considered paradox as a mark of truth. (shrink)

In this article I consider how the problem of social (intersubjective) cognition relates to time-consciousness. In the first part, I briefly introduce Husserl’s account of intersubjective cognition. I discuss the concept of empathy (Einfühlung) and its relation with time-consciousness. I argue that empathy is based on pre-reflective awareness of the other’s harmony of behaviour. In the second part, I distinguish pre-reflective (passive) and reflective (active) empathy and consider recent empirical research in the field of social cognition. I argue that these (...) levels of empathy are related with different levels of intersubjective temporality. By the intersubjective temporality I do not understand being in the same moment of objective time (so called clock time) but rather the shared experience of time and sharing temporal structure of actions. In the final part, I gather my considerations together and propose a general three-level framework of intersubjective temporality. (shrink)

A central question in philosophical and sociological accounts of technology is how the agency of technologies should be conceived, that is, how to understand their constitutive roles in the actions performed by assemblages of humans and artifacts. To address this question, I build on the suggestion that a helpful perspective can be gained by amalgamating “actor-network theory” and “postphenomenological” accounts. The idea is that only a combined account can confront both the nuances of human experiential relationships with technology on which (...) postphenomenology specializes, and also the chains of interactions between numerous technologies and humans that actor-network theory can address. To perform this amalgamation, however, several technical adjustments to these theories are required. The central change I develop here is to the postphenomenological notion of “multistability,” i.e., the claim that a technology can be used for multiple purposes through different contexts. I expand the postphenomenological framework through the development of a method called “variational cross-examination,” which involves critically contrasting the various stabilities of a multistable technology for the purpose of exploring how a particular stability has come to dominate. As a guiding example, I explore the case of the everyday public bench. The agency of this “mundane artifact,” as actor-network theorist Bruno Latour would call it, cannot be accounted for by either postphenomenology or actor-network theory alone. (shrink)

This article examines the philosophical role of illness. It briefly surveys the philosophical role accorded to illness in the history of philosophy and explains why illness merits such a role. It suggests that illness modifies, and thus sheds light on, normal experience, revealing its ordinary and therefore overlooked structure. Illness also provides an opportunity for reflection by performing a kind of suspension (epoché) of previously held beliefs, including tacit beliefs. The article argues that these characteristics warrant a philosophical role for (...) illness. While the performance of most philosophical procedures is volitional and theoretical, however, illness is uninvited and threatening, throwing the ill person into anxiety and uncertainty. As such it can be viewed as a radical philosophical motivation that can profoundly alter our outlook. The article suggests that illness can change the ways in which we philosophise: it may shape philosophical methods and concerns and change one's sense of salience and conception of philosophy. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of empathy as the form of experience directed at embodied unities of expressive movement. After outlining the key differences between simulation theory and the phenomenological approach to empathy, the paper argues that while the phenomenological approach is closer to respecting a necessary constitutional asymmetry between first-personal and second-personal senses of embodiment, it still presupposes a general concept of embodiment that ends up being problematic. A different account is proposed that is neutral on the explanatory role (...) of the first-person sense of embodiment, which leads to an emphasis on the transformative nature of empathy and a broadening of the scope of possible targets of empathic awareness. (shrink)

Delusions and hallucinations present a challenge to traditional epistemology by allowing two people’s experiences of the world to be vastly different to each other. Traditional objective realism assumes that there is a mind-independent objective world of which people gain knowledge through experience. However, each person only has direct access to his or her own subjective experience of the world, and so neither can be certain that his or her experience represents an objective world more accurately than the other’s. This essay (...) proposes an intersubjective account of psychosis, which avoids this sceptical attack on objective certainty by considering reality not at the level of an objective mindindependent world, but at the level of peoples’ shared experiences. This intersubjective hypothesis is developed further, with reference to Husserl’s concept of multiple lifeworlds, into a relativistic account. The implication on the social role of psychiatry is also explored. (shrink)

In this paper, I review recent contributions of phenomenology to a variety of disciplines, including the cognitive sciences and psychiatry, and explore (1) controversies about phenomenological methods and naturalization; (2) relations between phenomenology and the enactive and extended mind approaches; and (3) the promise of phenomenology for addressing a number of controversial philosophical issues.

In this paper, I explore the meaning of bodily integrity in disfiguring breast cancer. Bodily integrity is a normative principle precisely because it does not simply refer to actual physical or functional intactness. It rather indicates what should be regarded and respected as inviolable in vulnerable and damageable bodies. I will argue that this normative inviolability or wholeness can be based upon a person's embodied experience of wholeness. This phenomenological stance differs from the liberal view that identifies respect for integrity (...) with respect for autonomy (resulting in an invalidation of bodily integrity's proper normative meaning), as well as from the view that bodily integrity is based upon ideologies of wholeness (which runs the risk of being disadvantageous to women). I propose that bodily integrity involves a process of identification between the experience of one's body as “Leib” and the experience of one's body as “Körper.” If identification fails or is not possible, one's integrity is threatened. This idea of bodily integrity can support breast cancer patients and survivors in making decisions about possible corrective interventions. To implement this idea in oncology care, empirical-phenomenological research needs to establish how breast cancer patients express their embodied self-experiences. (shrink)

Online encyclopedia. 2011, revised, 2014: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gasset/.

The debate in relation to the soul suffers nowadays from a great lack of clarity. At least part of this cloudiness stems from a confusion among three different viewpoints that are not always reconcilable or mutually intelligible: the scientific point of view (natural sciences and empirical psychology), the therapeutic point of view (especially psychoanalysis) and the philosophical point of view. The goal of this paper is to blow away a little this cloudiness, and to introduce into the discussion a view (...) that has not yet received its proper place in it: existentialism. The scientific approach investigates the soul as if it were an object in the world, a fact. This approach gives priority to objective observations over subjective ones, and steps in the direction of materialization of the soul (the soul becomes the mind and the mind becomes the brain). Transcendental philosophy and psychological therapies explain the relation between the subject and its objects, and by this reveal the subjective dimension of our reality as the ground not only for our objective knowledge but for our ethical life as well. Existentialism, I suggest, makes a further and important step in this direction by focusing on individualistic aspects of human existence, which science could not know and general theories of the subject do not see. (shrink)

This essay explores the roots of social constructionism in the work of Alfred Schutz, the teacher of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann and, beyond Schutz, Edmund Husserl. It is described how pregiven things are logically formed and then ideal types or constructs with content are also constituted about them. Schutz begins in the egological perspective but goes beyond that to the intersubjective perspective to show how the world of everyday life has constructs received from predecessors as well as contemporaries and (...) shared by in-groups. Common-sense constructs are constituted like cultural-scientific ones. Motivation in everyday life and the role of the ordinary vernacular in their transmission is shown. An analysis then focuses on how constructs have recently been received and/or reinforced by political election polling in the latest USA presidential election. These constructs involve results in percentages that can be understood qualitatively for Democrats and Republicans divided into gender groups, generations, races, regions, and by education, income or social class, religion. This account can be considered reflective, descriptive, and culture-appreciative and thus phenomenological. Similar constructing no doubt occurs in other industrialized countries and affects so-called common sense. Deeper understanding than this analysis reaches is called for at the end of this essay. (shrink)

Reflection seems today to be highest fashion ineducation, especially in discussions aboutteacher education and the teaching profession.This has created the paradoxical situation that reflection is often used in an unreflectedmanner. Furthermore, this discovery ofreflection is not supported by earlierresearch. In philosophy, however, reflectionhas always played a central role.

Historically, the suspension of presuppositions arose as part of the philosophical procedure of the transcendental reduction which, Husserl taught, led to the distinct realm of phenomenological research: pure consciousness. With such an origin, it may seem surprising that bracketing remains a methodological concept of modern phenomenological psychology, in which the focus is on the life-world. Such a focus of investigation is, on the face of it, incompatible with transcendental idealism. The gap was bridged largely by Merleau-Ponty, who found it possible (...) to interpret Husserl's later work in an existentialist way, and thus enabled the process of bracketing to refer, not to a turning away from the world and a concentration on detached consciousness, but to the resolve to set aside theories, research presuppositions, ready-made interpretations, etc., in order to reveal engaged, lived experience. This paper outlines the history of the suspension of presuppositions and discusses the scope and limitations of bracketing in its new sense within existential phenomenology. The emphasis is on research practice and on the phenomenological quest for entry into the life-world of the research participant. It is argued that the bracketing of presuppositions throughout the process of research should be a cardinal feature of phenomenological psychology. Of equal importance is the investigator's sensitive awareness that the investigation of the life-world and the phenomena which appear within it is a thoroughly interpersonal process, necessarily entailing the taken-for-granted assumptions implicit in all social interaction. These presuppositions are not open to bracketing. (shrink)

The subjective experience of schizophrenia, its cause, and its course have been consistent topics of interest within the phenomenological tradition since its inception. After 80 years of study and the efforts of many investigators, however, phenomenological contributions have so far had only a modest impact on current understandings of this disorder. In this article, the author reviews the methodological and theoretical issues involved in the development of a phenomenological approach to understanding schizophrenia. Drawing examples from his own empirical research, the (...) author illustrates the three steps of description, understanding, and explanation required by an application of the phenomenological method to this empirical domain. He then considers obstacles to the acceptance of insights generated through this method by the mainstream psychiatric community. In conclusion, he suggests that the promise offered by a phenomenological approach will most likely be fulfilled when investigators appeal to the phenomenological conviction in intentionality to provide the guidelines for an empirical science of subjective life. (shrink)